


Suddener than we fancy it

by Sauternes



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: All The Tropes, F/M, Unexpected Pregnancy, one-night stand AU, set sort of vaguely somewhere in early season 2-ish, some angst and some fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 17:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11972646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauternes/pseuds/Sauternes
Summary: Amy Santiago plans for everything. One thing she didn't plan? To sort-of-accidentally-sort-of-on-purpose kiss her partner while tipsy.A slight twist on everyone's favorite trope: Amy and Jake hook up, ignore their feelings, and then have to face the (possibly person-sized) consequences.





	1. A trip to Walgreen's

**Author's Note:**

> Title is based on a favorite poem of mine, "Snow," by Louis MacNeice. This is in a vaguely alternative universe wherein Amy and Teddy and Jake and Sophia break-up without the events of The Road Trip

Someone voted “Most Responsible” in elementary school, junior high, and high school couldn’t possibly be pregnant after a one-night stand, Amy reminded herself as she walked 6 blocks out of her way to a Walgreen’s she’d never been to before to buy a pregnancy test. (Tina the checker from the Duane Reade on Amy’s block was way too judgy for this particular purchase).

She had taken her birth control pills every day at 7:30 AM since July before freshman year of college, when her cousin Stacy had dragged her to the Brooklyn Planned Parenthood “just in case.” She’d set an alarm on her brand-new Nokia cell phone right then and there, and was utterly grateful for it when Jason Chan from chemistry 103 turned out to be just as interested in her as she was in him.

Last year her gynecologist had tried to convince her to get an IUD, because “most people with busy schedules find it hard to take pills at the same time every day, especially when they aren’t planning a pregnancy for a few years.” But Amy read the pamphlet and the idea of not getting a period made her anxious. She didn’t have that much trust in any technology, 99.9% effective or not. Plus, she was Amy Santiago, she used condoms for the first 6 months of any relationship, and it’s not like she and Teddy were really having sex that regularly anymore.

Then she and Teddy broke up. And her gynecologist had moved to California, and work got busy and it wasn’t like she was dating much, plus she needed to focus on her career. And then her prescription ran out and she was going to get around to it once this next drug case was solved and the crime statistics database was re-correlated and who could have known that Jake Peralta would be such a good kisser? She had stopped carrying condoms in her purse a few months after the break-up, and Jake found one in his nightstand but they forgot to check the expiration date. And Amy, in her own tipsy foolishness, hadn’t even thought to ask if he did a monthly review of expiration dates of all household food, cleaning, and personal care items.

She had been so flustered the next morning, sneaking out of Jake’s apartment while he was still asleep, pretending everything was normal when she got a surprise call from Captain Holt that she was needed as back-up for a hostage situation gone awry, then avoiding eye contact with Jake at work (hard to do with someone you basically share a desk with) that she didn’t even think about the possible-babies part of her unexpected hookup until two weeks later when her period didn’t start.

At first, she thought she had counted wrong (February and its 28 days are a real nuisance). But by March 2 she realized she was late. And so Amy Santiago, voted Most Responsible 10 years in a row, found herself wishing she had put her grandmother’s ring on her left fourth finger before she got in line at an out-of-the way branch of her least favorite pharmacy chain 5 minutes after it opened on Sunday morning.

The bored middle-aged man working the cash register doesn’t even seem to notice what he is ringing up, but despite his indifference Amy has blushed all the way to the tips of her ears by the time she manages to croak out “double bag it, please?” to the clerk. He complies, still barely glancing away from the screen, and Amy rushes out the door in what she hopes is a still sort-of nonchalant looking pace.

She decides to stop at the Polish place next door for some liquid courage in the form of hot chocolate. She wasn’t _craving_ it though, so maybe she wasn’t pregnant. Just because they hadn’t checked the expiration date doesn’t mean the condom was actually expired, she reasons. Plus, Jake and Sophia had just broken up. Sophia seems like the type to check condom expiration dates. Or probably they weren’t using condoms? Amy doesn’t consider herself a prude, but she shivers involuntarily when thinking about her partner’s sex life, and the intimacies of his family planning decisions with his stunningly hot ex-girlfriend. Then she realizes that she’s part of both his sex life and family planning decisions and takes big sip of her hot chocolate. Which is still too hot. She gulps it down, frowning at the gritty, sand-paper taste left on her burned tongue.

“Great job, Santiago,” she mutters to herself as she fishes in her purse for the key to her building, “Starting on the right foot today.”

She trudges up the stairs, dreading what comes next. She briefly contemplates calling Kylie, but decides against it. This might be nothing! She starts playing her DVR recording of Thursday’s Jeopardy! and pulls out a crossword she had been saving. Then she reads the pregnancy test instructions three times. As she begins the fourth read-through she realizes her hands are shaking.

“Ok get your act together, Amy,” she whispers to herself as she walks towards the bathroom, “You are an adult woman. You’re an NYPD detective. You can pee on a stick.”

Once the deed is done, she sets the stick gently on the toilet seat to ‘develop’ for the three excruciating minutes that the box says it needs to make a second line appear (or not, she hopes, or not).  

Amy hits play on Jeopardy! and chews on her favorite crossword pencil while trying not to stare only at the timer ticking down on her phone. Three minutes can’t possibly be this long. Her stomach twists in knots. Is that a sign of pregnancy, or just nerves?

Finally, right after Dennis from Boston biffs an easy question on Michelangelo’s technique for painting the Sistine Chapel, the 0:01 flips to 0:00, and Amy bounds the 15 steps across her apartment to the bathroom. She grabs for the test, and her breath catches. It’s not possible. This was just a precaution.

There are, unmistakably, two solid blue lines on the stick.

~~~~~~~~

She does another test, of course (she has bought the box of two tests- the unit price was much better, and Amy Santiago wasn’t going to stop making sensible shopping choices just because she might be pregnant). It comes up positive, too. This time she doesn’t even try to use Jeopardy! as a distraction. She sits and stares at the damn stick, which pops up with those two blue lines long before her timer hits 0:00 again.

So, naturally, she next tries the CVS 8 blocks away. This time she slips on her grandmother’s ring at the checkout, with just a brief whispered apology heaven-ward as she approaches the front of the line.

Those two tests come back positive, too.

Amy goes to the kitchen and puts all the tests in a quart size Ziploc bag. Then she goes to her bed, pulls down the covers, lies down fully dressed, and cries her eyes out. She hadn’t expected the sobs, but it’s like her body doesn’t have another way to process this new information. Or maybe it was the hormones. God, she moaned, could it be the hormones already?

The next thing she knows the sun is shining brightly in her eyes and her phone is buzzing almost off of the nightstand.

She groans and rolls over towards the noise. As she opens her eyes, wondering how she managed to fall asleep in the middle of the day, she realizes it is almost 2 o’clock.

Amy picks up the phone, expecting to see a telemarketer number or maybe a charity she had donated to once and then forgotten about. Instead the caller ID reads Jacob Peralta, 99th precinct.

Amy hesitates a second before answering, then picks up more out of habit than conscious decision.

“Jake, what is it?”

“Sorry to bug you on a Sunday, Ames, but it’s all hands on deck here. Charles and Rosa got a tip on the sculpture forger operating out of Ditmas Park, and we need someone who can pretend to know something about art ASAP.”

“I don’t pretend to know about art, Jake,” Amy huffs into the phone. “I studied the history of art at NYU.”

“Yeah, yeah, great! That boring stuff is perfect for this auction we have to go to. Get your square butt down to the precinct. Bye!”

Out of habit she rolls her eyes at Jake’s immaturity, and begins to get out of bed and mentally sort through her casual weekend pant-suit options before she remembers that going to work with Jake would mean seeing Jake, and that the last time she saw Jake she didn’t know she was pregnant with his baby.

She quickly resolves to not tell him today. It's still early and she needs to plan more for this. She doesn’t even know how many binders pregnancy necessitates. Maybe the telling the baby daddy deserved its own binder? What about the telling your very into marriage, very Catholic parents? That could be a two-binder problem.

Fortunately, the short drive from her apartment to the precinct is even shorter on a Sunday afternoon, so she hasn’t started to attempt one-handed stress braiding before her arrival in the bullpen.


	2. The Auction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy has little time to dwell on her unexpected news when she's called in to act as an art expert at a fancy auction/ potential crime scene.

As soon as she walks into the precinct she feels more at ease. This is her place. She knows every smell (from the warmth of newly laminated paperwork to the surprisingly distinct aromas some of the repeat perps) and every face. It’s surprisingly reassuring to see Charles and Rosa hard at work, signing forms and coordinating detectives as well as beat cops.

“Hey,” she calls out in greeting, “what’s up?”

Charles shrieks a little bit upon seeing her. “Amy, thank goodness you’re here. We need someone who can speak knowledgably to a buyer we are tracing. I’ll be in the command center, Jake and Rosa will be in the auction hall, too, but we need you most for the schmoozing afterwards. There’s some chatting beforehand, but after is when we need to do the most sussing.”

“Ugh, weird word choice, Charles,” Jake emerges from the briefing room in a very well-tailored tuxedo, his hair smoothed back. “And, Amy, we’re going to need to work on that outfit. Fortunately, Gina owes me one, so she’s getting you and Rosa ready.”

“You’re making Rosa wear a dress in public?” Amy’s jaw drops. “I can only imagine what Gina did to earn that.”

As if on cue, Gina glides out of the briefing room and claps loudly. “Listen up sad weekend detectives, and draw your attention here, Gina Linetti’s finest ever work is about to be revealed.”

Before Gina can finish her speech, Rosa sulks out into the bullpen, her hair in flowing waves, her ears sparkling (‘does Rosa have pierced ears?’ Amy thinks. ‘How can I not even know that about her?’), and her upper body wrapped in a silky silver shawl. There seemed to be some sort of light pink gown underneath, but the combination of the wrap and hunching made it hard to tell.

Rosa grumpily barks at everyone, “keep your eyes on your work or get them gouged out,” and there is a rapid return to the previous hustle and bustle.

Jake walks over to Amy and gives her the detailed rundown of the case and the goals for that night. She knew a little bit about the art forger simply from being at work while Charles, Jake, and Rosa discussed it, but Jake fills her in on the details of the sculptures being passed off tonight, and the two main suspects. The reason the squad needed to move on the forgers tonight was not only to intercept the art itself before it hit the less controlled international market, but also to try to spot a third, yet unidentified accomplice who Charles and Rosa believed to be planted in the audience at auctions to cast an air of authenticity and drive up bidding. The original art appraiser on loan from the white-collar crime division had just bailed (“some terrible excuse about a baby with food poisoning,” Jake scoffed while Amy just gulped, thinking about how that could be her life were she to be called in for a case like this a year from now), and the only other person on record with art knowledge in Brooklyn was part of major crimes. Suffice it to say, Amy was needed if this operation wasn’t going to be scavenged by the Vultures and his ilk.

So Amy allows Gina to shepherd her into the breakroom-turned fashion closet, and doesn’t even put up a fuss as Gina verbally (and briefly tries to physically) tear apart everything from the fabric of the weekend pantsuit to her decision to wear grannie panties in to work.

“Where did you get all these clothes, Gina?” Amy asks, trying to redirect the conversation.

“I don’t spill my secrets, boo,” Gina says as she pulls gown after gown off the rack, holding them up to Amy’s chest and face, tutting and tsking as she goes. Finally Gina holds up the same dress, a rich raspberry sheath, to the light from the window, to Amy, and to the light again, “This will do,” she declares, and pushes Amy and the dress behind a screen.

As soon as Amy emerges in the dress, Gina smiles and tells Amy, “Am I magical or what? You look almost like a person! I’ve got a necklace and earrings and shoes for you to wear, and yes, the heels are non-negotiable.”  

Amy just grumbles and does as she’s told. Gina isn’t worth crossing when she’s in a mood, and when she looks at herself in the full-length trifold mirror Gina has somehow also managed to fit into the breakroom, she can’t help but marvel a little bit, too. Even without her hair and makeup done fully (Charles had already incredulously poked his head in twice to ask when they would be ready to leave), she must admit that Gina does good work. The near-magenta tone is not something Amy would have ever picked for herself, but it makes her skin and hair look like they’re glowing. The earrings glitter just enough to suggest to anyone short of a diamond appraiser that they are the real deal (“I have my sources, Amy, don’t worry your little head about it”), and the dramatic updo with cascading curls will be inconvenient if they have to chase anyone down tonight, but Amy’s got bobby pins and those nifty roll-up flats in her purse in case of emergency.

When Charles sticks his head in the door the to tell them for the third time that they’re going to miss the beginning of the auction, Gina shoos him away, assuring that Amy will be out in one second, and then proceeds to spray a thick cloud of musky but somehow light perfume in Amy’s exit path.

Choking on the, admittedly elegant, fumes, Amy opens the door to find the bullpen practically empty. Jake is fiddling with one of his cufflinks, and looks up as her heels clack across the linoleum in his direction. His mouth drops open for half a second before he recovers, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he knits his brows together in mock-concern and taps his index finger on the spot on his wrist where a watch would go. “Running late, Detective Santiago, I’m very disappointed in this display of lapsed professionalism,” he drawls in one of his better Holt impressions.

“Ugh, Peralta, shut up,” Amy groans. But the corners of her mouth turn up a bit involuntarily as they step into the elevator together, Jake’s hand almost but not quite touching the small of her back.

~~~

Jake and Rosa go into the auction a few minutes before Amy to pick seats in the back that provide the best view for observing strange pre-auction and bidding behavior. They text Charles a couple of promising seating positions, and Charles and Amy pick a starting target for the evening. They settle on a young blond woman who wasn’t showed up on their previous surveillance, figuring that Amy can quickly ascertain her level of art knowledge and then focus on surveilling the rest of the crowd.

As the auction winds down (she hadn’t had even once chance to reference her senior capstone paper on connections between Moorish and Rococo Spanish courtyards before the bidding started), Amy moves towards the indoor courtyard for the wine and cheese reception, keeping her eyes peeled for Jake and Rosa, who had said they would meet her there.

She spots them almost immediately. Rosa is hard to miss: in 4 inch heels and the blush-colored dress Gina had forced her into wearing, she looks like an Amazon, towering over most of the guests and emanating a terrifying radiance.

She is engaged in a painful looking conversation with a white-haired older man while Jake stands directly next to her with his back turned, shoveling cheese onto his plate. Leave it to Jake to use a reconnaissance technique to keep Rosa nearby while also taking enough hors d’oeuvres to feed a small country.

Amy absentmindedly picks a champagne flute off a waiter’s tray as she makes her way through the courtyard to update her fellow detectives. She gets the glass up to her lips before realizing that she couldn’t drink it. It’s so strange, she thinks, that his monumental thing is happening inside of her, maybe changing the shape of her whole life, and yet she doesn’t even feel different enough to remember that alcohol is bad for growing fetuses.

In what she thinks is one of her smoother moves, she repurposes the champagne as a gift to extract Rosa from the conversation with the old man.

“Champagne for you, my dear,” she says as she kisses Rosa on each cheek, giving the old man a pointed glance. “Your old collection is performing splendidly.”

Amy extends her hand to introduce herself as Lilian Euban, private art advisor. There are only a handful of competent private advisors in the greater New York metropolitan area, as far as Amy knows, so she is betting on this man being a dilettante dabbler (like the blond trust-fund girl she sat next to) rather than a true art aficionado. Her hunch seems to be correct, because after kissing her hand in introduction (“Xavier Goulet, at your service,”) he quickly begins asking her questions about Rosa’s collection and its provenance, rather than asking for a card or showing any signs of suspicion that she isn’t quite who she said she was.  

He gets bored of picking her brain after a few minutes, and wanders off, giving Jake an opportunity to return from his latest cheese-hunting expedition and Rosa the chance to update them both on her perspective of the evening.

Rosa is just beginning to explain that Xavier Goulet has been a suspect due to his sudden entry into the market when something in the air shifts and the odor of all of Jake’s eclectic accumulation of appetizers wafts over Amy.

“Oh my gosh, Jake, what are you eating?” she says as she scrunches her nose. The mix of various aged cheeses, fruits, and skewered meat items heaped onto a plate certainly isn’t the most appealing, but Amy wasn’t anticipating the wave of nausea that hit her as the smell sunk into her nostrils.  

She mutters something vague about forgetting her cellphone somewhere as she rushes into the hallway in search of a bathroom. Fortunately, a gently lit, marble-floored, and blessedly empty bathroom is right around the corner. Amy sinks onto her knees in the first empty stall she finds, ready to puke up her guts when the wave of nausea abruptly passes. Her forehead feels sweaty, and her heart is beating fast. She raises herself up to sit on the toilet so no one will be suspicious if they wander in, but leans her head against the cool metal of the stall, letting the cold seep into her skin and works its way down her body.

She takes a few deep breaths, smooths the wrinkles from her dress, and splashes some water on her neck at the sink. She looks down at her stomach, half expecting see a baby bump after the sudden arrival of morning (or evening) sickness. But her stomach looks just like it did a week ago, and now that the nausea has passed she feels pretty much like herself again, except for a gnawing anxiety about how this is all going to work out.

A minute later she’s back in the courtyard, and Jake and Rosa only give her minor quizzical looks as she rejoins them. Half of Jake’s appetizer selection has somehow disappeared in the five minutes Amy’s been gone, and she finds herself wondering if it was even possible for Jake alone to have eaten that much that quickly.  

“So what are we doing about Xavier?” she asks.

“Well, we’ve got no hard evidence on him, and he’s about to leave with a bodyguard who makes Terry look like a toddler, so pretty much jackshit we can do tonight,” Rosa replies.

Jake sighs in agreement and stuffs two cubes of cheese in his mouth. He holds the plate out to Amy, “Snack for the road, Santiago?”

She musters up her best haughty look and avoids breathing in through her nose as she shakes her head to decline. Jake takes the plate with him as the three dejected detectives head for the exit to tell Charles that they found (and then lost) the man they are looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little slow- picking up soon! And future updates should hopefully also be a little faster :)


	3. Jake and Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy decides it's time to call in some backup in the form of a heart-to-heart with Kylie... and then when on a mission with Jake, Rosa, and Charles, they all end up wishing she had a little bit less backup.

Amy goes home and immediately starts in on the binder process. She won’t get much sleep tonight regardless, and it seems like the art forging case will be taking up an increased share of everyone’s attention this week at the precinct. Soon she’s in her groove, collating pages and cross-checking references, barely thinking about the fact that all these formerly strange terms (cervical dilation, vacuum aspiration, mucus plug) are related to her. Around two in the morning, with one binder done and another in process, she decides it’s time for bed.

Then it’s Monday at the precinct, unremarkable except for a post-auction debrief with a disappointed Holt. The Captain agrees to Rosa and Charles’ request for increased surveillance of the auction house during the time that the sculptures from last night are scheduled to be packed and shipped on Tuesday. Charles brings leftovers that nearly cause an intervention from the biohazards squad when they explode in the microwave. Terry almost breaks a sweat physically restraining Hitchcock and Scully from attacking Charles, and Gina gleefully films the whole thing on her phone while yelling increasingly vulgar suggestions at the sergeant.

After work she decides it’s time to tell Kylie. Which is slightly complicated by the fact that she never quite got around to telling Kylie that she had slept with Jake in the first place. Normally Kylie would be her one and only confessional about all things meeting and kissing boys. But both Kylie and her girlfriend Lana had heard one too many exasperated stories about Jake’s antics for Amy to have been willing to admit the deed when it happened.

She perseverates on the corner of 18th and Maple on her way home: turn left and try to intercept Kylie as she’s leaving work, or turn right and call from the peace and comfort of her own couch? She looks at her watch: 6:45, late enough that Kylie’s office in the back of the Bureau of Records should be basically abandoned. Office it is. The early spring air is still biting, and she’s almost a little bit out of breath by the time she has climbed the three flights to rear entrance of Kylie’s office. Just as she predicted, Kylie is sitting in her cubical, happily typing into a spreadsheet as Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” plays in the background (even in the empty office Kylie only plays Mussorgsky quietly- too many fortes and crashes of cymbals for regular hours).  

“Hi!”

Kylie jumps about a foot in the air, cursing under her breath.

“Amy, you know how I hate your using police covert action tactics when I’m in my zone.”

Amy laughs, “You just don’t pay attention to anything but your spreadsheets.”

“Same difference. What brings you to my lair on a Monday evening?”

Amy starts at the beginning, spilling the beans about Jake’s confession of liking her “romantic stylez” last year, and how they really do get along so well most of the time, and that the sour beer was stronger than they had thought, and that his lips were strangely inviting, and his house so close to the bar. She pauses, though, before getting to anything about the pregnancy. But there are upsides of having only one real friend, and a smart one at that.

“So you’re worried you’re pregnant?” Kylie asks before Amy has a chance to dance around an explanation of what happened after the sex.

“Not worried, I know,” Amy sighs in response.

“How many pregnancy tests?”

“Four. But really each individual one is quite reliable. It’s a remarkable technology.”

“Whatever, you have to expect some dumb questions when you ask a lesbian about outcomes of heterosexual intercourse.”

“Regardless, it’s real, Kylie. And I don’t know what to do and I haven’t told Jake yet. I’ve barely been talking to him since all of this. It kind of sucks. I feel like I’ve lost a friend, even without all the baby stuff.”

“Ok, take a deep breath,” Kylie reassures Amy as she closes out her spreadsheet and starts to gather her things into a shoulder bag. “Nothing is happening yet. Nothing has ended, or started. It’s New York City in the 21st century. Let’s get some gelato and go from there.”

They leave the office building and walk in the direction of Kylie’s favorite gelato place near the park. On the walk, the conversation turns to last week’s trivia shenanigans (a team with too many players won the first round even though they should have immediately recused themselves from contesting any prizes).

The conversation pauses about halfway through the gelato eating, which Kylie takes advantage of to ask very bluntly, “So what are you going to do about all of this?”

“Well, first I have to tell Jake, I guess. Actually, first I need to finish my binders.”

“Amy, 1. You should use spreadsheets instead of binders 2. You must have a gut feeling about what you want,” Kylie responds, raising her eyebrows.

Amy takes a deep breath. Letting emotion factor into this all is what she’s been trying to avoid. Emotions are overwhelming. Planning is manageable. But it’s no secret that she wasn’t planning on having kids anytime soon. She took four pregnancy tests because she was hoping against hope that there had been a mistake.

“I didn’t want or expect this. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m in a pretty good place to be a parent, right? I love reading and enrichment programs. The new city employee policy means 6 weeks of paid leave for me, 6 weeks for Jake if he would want to be involved. I live near a good daycare and my mom isn’t far either, she’s helped out a lot with the other grandkids.”

“But what does all that matter if you just said this isn’t what you want?”   

Amy sighs and returns her attention to her ice cream, and it seems Kylie knows better than to press further. The two friends settle back into discussing recent Jeopardy! scandals and construction on the S train before Kylie heads home to apologize to Lana for missing dinner.

~~

After another productive night of binder-making, Amy is ready to face Tuesday. Her goal is to try to be more normal with Jake, to ease themselves back into steady friendship waters before totally upsetting the boat. Or something like that. She’s never been sailing.

Plan normal is going pretty well until 9:02 am. Strangely, Jake was on time today, and it’s Charles whose late entrance with a wail of woe captivates the bullpen. He had been out walking his dogs when he saw a man who looked like Xavier Goulet, and decided to follow him for a few blocks. Xavier entered one of Charles’ favorite cheese stores and Charles followed him in, only to be loudly identified by name and occupation as he was greeted by the owner.  

“So that ruins my chance to be able to work the warehouse stakeout this afternoon,” he concludes his story. Rosa stabs her desk with one of her pocket knives.

Rosa and Charles go to Holt, and they decide to send Rosa, Jake, and Amy on the stakeout, with Charles nearby for backup if their cover is blown. They’ll start the mission as surveillance, but be prepared to reprise their roles from the auction night if necessary.

The pace of the morning picks up after the plan is set in motion. They each need tactical and art-professional clothing ready in cars. Rosa and Charles continue to scour blueprints of the warehouse, and Jake and Amy get backstories, documents, and evidence in order to process arrest warrants for the two known ringleaders of the forging operation.

After lunch they roll out, Rosa in one car, Jake and Amy in another, and Charles in a third. Jake turns on the squad car sound system, cranking the volume before realizing that it’s still playing the Toni Braxton CD from his last stakeout with Charles. He scrambles to change the channel as Amy bursts into giggles.

“I like your music choice,” she smirks.

“Ugh it was all Charles.”

“Fine, suit yourself.”

They travel the rest of the way to the warehouse without talking- a quiet that sits somewhere between comfortable and awkward. Jake fiddles with the radio dial periodically, and Amy wishes she had driven. They park a few blocks away from the site, and Amy heads to investigate while Jake waits in the car. The goal is to get surveillance footage of Xavier interacting with the forger, preferably exchanging bills. If caught, she’ll resume her cover as Lilian Euban, hoping that the cut-throat nature of the New York art scene would be a reasonable enough explanation for the snooping.

She checks the wire in her ear as she gets out of the car- this way she is connected to Jake, Charles and Rosa at all times, since they won’t have full visuals on each other for most of the day. Rosa heads north towards a water tower that she can use as a vantage point. Charles remains in one car while Jake moves over to an adjacent street to park more inconspicuously.

Amy is just rounding the corner near the warehouse when she hears Rosa’s voice buzzing in her ear.

“They’ve already made contact. I’ve got a few pictures from here but not enough to prove Goulet’s involvement. Can you get closer soon?” 

“You got it,” Amy replies, snapping into her ‘art advisor pretending to not know how to do good surveillance’ mode. She walks a little heavier and starts taking very obvious non-selfies facing at various angles around the windows of the building. It’s only seconds before she’s noticed, and being pulled into the warehouse by one of the bulky men who had escorted Goulet the other night.

She knows Rosa can see that she’s been taken in, and hopes that they give her a few minutes to talk her way out of this. The plan had been to send Jake and Charles to move on the art if she weren’t able to get more evidence- they’d find a way to tie Goulet to the scheme later, and Amy can handle herself with a couple of thugs for a few minutes. Right before being pulled into the doorway and out of sight of Rosa, she coughs twice into her mic and makes an L shape with her right hand on her thigh, trying to tell the squad she’s got it under control.

She hears a click in her ear that she takes as confirmation that Rosa got the message. She smiles innocently up at the giant bodyguard.

“You might remember me from the other night? I was just so jealous of those pieces your acquaintance won the bidding on, and I was hoping to get one more glance. I know we work for opposing parties, but we’re both art appreciators.”

The man just stares down at her. Perhaps the ‘fellow art appreciators’ line was a teensy bit too much bullshit, even for a fake private art advisor.

But before he or Amy get to make another move, Jake and Charles come crashing through the door.

“Freeze, NYPD!” they shout. The man drops Amy’s arm, and she pulls out her gun and joins Jake and Charles in telling him to get down on the ground.

Rosa curses into Amy’s wire, “What the hell, the statues are rolling now. They shouldn’t be going in!”

 

Amy looks over at Charles and Jake. All three of them are pointing their weapons at this single (though large) man. Amy looks at Charles, wondering if he is going to take charge and direct someone to sweep the rest of the warehouse. But his face has fallen as he realizes that, for the second time in 3 days, they’ve lost their key suspects, and now possibly the art as well.

“I’ve got it,” Jake says, heading towards the back office they had seen on the blueprints. Amy follows, and not a minute later they find the presumed forger and his lesser accomplice hiding behind a desk. Apparently they had heard Jake and Charles’ shouts and decided to take cover.

It’s satisfying to at least arrest someone, but Amy feels nauseous (or morning sick, she worries?) about the art getting away, with the link between the art and the wider markets as fuzzy as ever.  

Jake radios Rosa and tells her they’ve got three collars and to please call for some beat cops to help bring the forger in. She responds with, “Fuck it, Jake, I called Port Authority to stop all traffic form the terminal it seems they’re heading to. You couldn’t have waited five more minutes?”

~~~

Holt is livid by the time they get back to the precinct. Rosa is glowering at everyone in the bullpen, and Charles is practically in tears. Holt calls them into his office one by one, outlining his disappointment and placing them on desk duty for the rest of the week.

Jake is called into Holt’s office last. Amy watches through the window as Holt glares at Peralta from behind his desk. She watches Jake’s shoulders slump further and further over the course of the two minutes it takes for Holt to finish explaining the importance of trust and of planning and of not ever, ever, having to call the Port Authority to bail out a mission.

Jake doesn’t make eye contact with anyone in the precinct as he heads straight from Holt’s office out the door, car keys already visible in his hand by the time he reaches the stairwell.

She takes a deep breath. (Now or never, Santiago, she thinks to herself). Jake’s in trouble not all, but partially, because of her giving him a crappy signal. She gave him a crappy signal because, despite her best attempts to play it cool today, they are still way out of sync as partners. That only leaves one thing to do. She breaks into a light jog, following Jake down the back staircase and outside.  

“Wait, Jake,” she calls out across the nearly-empty parking lot. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He turns around, two paces from his car, characteristic grin nowhere to be found. “You know what, Amy, I’m not really in the mood right now. I get that I messed up, and I don’t need to hear it from you as well as from Holt.”

“No, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I need to tell you something. And, um, it seems clear this isn’t the best time and I thought I would wait, but I can’t anymore. Can we just sit somewhere maybe?” She looks around, somehow having never realized before the lack of outdoor seating options near the precinct.

Jake wrinkles his brow, and immediately starts walking, “We’ll sit on that bench in the tiny park. There won’t be anyone there.”

“City parks are closed after dusk, Jake!”

“Amy Santiago, I know you love rules, but come on. I’ve been on like fifty stakeouts with you after dark in city parks.”

“That’s for official police business! Not personal issues,” she protests as he plops himself on the bench, while she stands, firmly planted, on the public side of the fence.

Jake just smiles back, “Well, you said personal, so now I’m interested. Need the awesome advice of Detective Jake Peralta, NYPD, karate black belt?”

She rolls her eyes, sighed, and goes to sit down next to Jake.

“Do you remember three weeks ago, when we were celebrating Charles and Rosa’s murder conviction at the sour beer place Charles made us go to near Brooklyn Bridge Park, and then we all meant to go back to Shaw’s but everyone had that training the next day except us and then…”

Jake cuts in, “You mean do I remember the fact that we had sex? Pretty good sex, if I recall, though we were both a little tipsy. And how you’ve been weird ever since? Because, yes, of course I do.”

Amy stops in her tracks, mouth practically hanging open. It’s not like she thought he would forget, it’s just that she had typed out notes, and his interrupting wasn’t in the outline.

Jake looks calm, almost serious.

“Yeah,” she pauses, thinking about how to steer the conversation back on track. And then she gives up on the planned speech. “It was really nice, at the time. But I didn’t know how you felt and I was nervous and so I’ve been weird and avoiding you. I’m sorry. So anyway, do you happen to know when the condom we used expired?”

“You know that I didn’t know milk expired until two years ago, so…” And then realization dawns on his face, “Oh my god, Ames, are you trying to tell me that I got you pregnant?”

“Maybe…” she whispers into her scarf.

Jake’s eyes widen till they look slightly wild, with some combination of shock and fear, and something else that Amy can’t quite place.

“I’ve been doing research, of course,” Amy picks up towards the ending of the speech she’d planned. “And I started taking pre-natal vitamins this morning, even though it’s late for that. But I haven’t made any decisions yet. I want kids someday, I think, but I didn’t think about it happening like this. I had to let you know, though. It doesn’t feel right hiding anything from you.” She pauses for a second. “And I miss things just being normal between us.”

“Well, I’m great at normal! Ugh, terrible catchphrase. Don’t tell anyone I said that.” He looks down at his hands, then his eyes flit for a moment to Amy’s still-flat stomach. He looks back up and says, without hesitation, “This is obviously kind of a big surprise for me, too. But I’m in on this 100%. Boxed mac and cheese is the only food I know how to make, but kids love it! I’ve got crippling debt, though, so this kid better be smart if it wants to go to college. That won’t be a problem with you as its mom.” He smiles up at her with a grin so wide that it would seem saccharine on anyone else.

“You’re taking this way better than I expected,” Amy replied. “I think you’re taking it better than I am.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who is growing a bloodsucking parasite inside my stomach right now.”

“Ok, we can talk about how that’s not quite right later.”

“Can I do anything to help you out?”

“No, I just needed to tell you. But you can’t tell anyone else! It’s so early and I haven’t made any decisions yet and I don’t want the squad to all be talking.”

Jake stands up, offering Amy a hand. She scoffs and bats it away, “I’m only a few weeks pregnant, Peralta. I can outrun you, outlift you, outsquat you any day of the week.”

“That sounds like the Amy I know,” he smiles.

~~~

She gets a text that night, maybe 20 minutes after she gets home.

**Sorry if I came on too strong back there**

A few seconds later another text pops up on the screen, then a series of them in quick succession.

**I support whatever u choose**

**I just wouldn’t ever want to abandon a kid**

**U kno, because of my dad issues**

**Ur a good partner. See u tomorrow**

She smiles down at her phone.

_I know you’ve always got my back, Pineapples. See you tomorrow : )_

Since the disastrous night of the art auction Amy hasn’t felt particularly nauseous. Maybe that’s how her mom managed to have so many kids. Magical no-morning sickness pregnancies. But something about this conversation with Jake leaves her stomach unsettled. She makes a cup of chamomile tea, pulls out her favorite blanket, and reclines on the couch. She pulls up her Netflix queue and scrolls through it distractedly. She’s looking at the blurb of a documentary about the upkeep of the Institute Pasteur’s platinum kilogram for the fourth time when she realizes why she’s so unsettled. Staring down at her belly, she realizes she never truly imagined keeping it. She’d been raised Catholic, but the “judge not lest ye be judged” kind more than the “speaking for the unborn” kind. She’d never thought much about getting an abortion personally not because she was opposed to it, but because she never thought she’d need one. And she’d assumed that Jake would be freaked out. She thought he’d latch on when she dropped the hint about terminating the pregnancy, but instead his mind seemed to jump straight to fatherhood.

The thought dawns on her slowly, but once it does she feels like a fool for not realizing it earlier. Jake Peralta still has feelings for her, ‘romantic stylez.’ And she has them for him, too.   


	4. Decisions, Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and Jake go on an adventure

She wakes up not to an alarm, but to the buzz of a text message.

**John McLane Santiago-Peralta. Works for a girl or a boy.**

Amy rolls her eyes, but can’t help but chuckle to herself.

 _Helvetica Broccoli has a nice ring to it_ she replies.

**Only if you want it to get picked on.**

**What about Optimus Prime?**

Amy doesn’t reply this time, instead getting out of bed and beginning her process of getting ready for work. She puts grounds and water in the coffee maker as she runs through some quick calisthenics and then gets in the shower. She emerges to the glorious smell of hot coffee, makes herself a cup with cream and sugar, and puts it in a travel mug before she gets dressed.

The precinct is peaceful when she arrives, and no crises break out all day. She’d almost complain of boredom if normalcy weren’t such a nice feeling right now. She and Jake seem to be out of their funk as well. They both make the same joke about Hitchcock’s sweater matching his soup, and they make a bet about whether or not Terry will manage to incorporate yogurt into his remarks during a community safety meeting. (He does, and Amy has to buy Jake frozen yogurt on the walk back).  

In fact, the next four days pass like any other. Trivia Newton John is back in action this week, even if their water looks curious when Amy flags him down to change her standard drink order from Brooklyn Brewing Brown Ale to ice water, hold the lemon. Kylie is on her best behavior, too, only raising her eyebrows as Amy changes the order, inviting Amy to talk without bringing up the topic of the pregnancy in public.

 “Better safe, than sorry, you know?” Amy shrugs, and Kylie nods in response.

“How did it go with Jake?”

“Well, actually. He’s super on board.”

“Hmm, not what I would have thought,” Kylie says as she swirls her whiskey sour.

“Me neither!” Amy replies. “I mean, I maybe think he’s a little bit less of a man-child than you do. At least I feel good still. Almost no nausea, just a little bit dizzy when I stand up too quick. Things feel normal with Jake again. Work is solid. Honestly, if I didn’t know I was pregnant I would say things are going pretty well right now? But then sometimes the fact that all this,” she pauses and gestures at the bar, at the dark sky outside, and at Kylie, “could basically be over for me in a few months hits me like a ton of brick, and I spiral a little bit.”  

“Is there anything I can do?” Kylie asks.

“No, let’s just kick some butt tonight.”

They get into a bit of a tight scrape during the wordplay round, but Amy comes through with the name of Socrates’ wife (Xanthipe) in history overtime, and Trivia Newton John reclaims its much-deserved place as the #1 team in the Brooklyn Brainiacs trivia league.

  ~~~~~~

After morning briefing three days later, when Charles finally gets to announce that they’ve found Xavier Goulet and his export contact, Amy taps on Jake’s shoulder and lifts her chin in the direction of the south-facing window. She figures he will know to go back to the bench where she had told him about the pregnancy.

Sure enough, 5 minutes later Jake sits down on the bench next to her, trying but not quite succeeding at looking relaxed and casual. 

“Hey, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just, I made a decision and so I figured I should tell you first.”

“Of course, that’s what I’m here for,” he says with a half-hearted chuckle.

“Well, I appreciate everything you said last week, and I know you would be a great and involved dad, but I just don’t think we have to do this right now. I think I want kids, but not yet. Neither of us planned for this, I don’t even know if my apartment has been lead tested!” She realizes that she had started to gesture, and reminded herself to pull it back in (literally and figuratively). “Anyway, Jake, I’ve decided to get an abortion.”

She could swear she sees Jake’s eyes darken for a split second before he breaks out his trademark Peralta dufus-y grin, “Girl power, Santiago! I’m sorry, that’s not the right response. Umm, I obviously totally support you one thousand percent. Will you need help with the costs? I’m crushingly indebted, so what’s another couple hundred bucks? Or I guess this is New York so maybe insurance will cover it? But I can give you a ride or something? Beat up a protestor? Plus I’m sure you’ve walked through this all in your binder, and …”

“Calm down, Jake,” Amy cuts him off. “You don’t have to prove you’re ok with this. I know you were excited about the prospect of a baby. So, I get it if you want some space. I can handle this on my own.”

Amy unexpectedly feels a hand on her hand. Jake squeezes her hand gently as he replies.

“Amy, when I said I’m with you regardless of what you decide, I meant it. I know you get your jollies organizing, so I wouldn’t dare offer to schedule anything, but let me know when the appointment is, ok? I can give you a ride and keep you company. It’s the least I can do, given the circumstances.”

She opens her mouth to turn him down, to explain that she’s read about it online, and Rosa owes her a no-questions asked favor so she can be her ride, and then, to her own surprise, she opens her mouth and says, “Ok. The appointment is on Saturday at 8:15. Can you pick me up at my apartment at 7?”

“Seven?” Jake looks like himself again as he recoils in a combination of mock and true horror. “Should I ask why so early?”

“I just like to be on time for things. And they have to run a couple of short tests before the procedure, and there’s protestors, like you said, so we need to build in time for that. Plus you have a terrible sense of direction.”

“We’re going to ignore that comment due to your current delicate situation, ok? So, yeah, of course. Seven AM. On Saturday. Cool cool, fun. I’ll bring pocket donuts.”

Amy stands to head back to the precinct. After a few steps she turns back, “Thanks, Jake.”

His only response is a nod.

~~~~

Her doorbell rings at 6:55 AM on Saturday. It can only be one person, but she looks through the peephole anyway before opening the door. Jake’s holding a tray with coffee from Greg’s and a box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins, not his usual 99cent bodega powdered donuts.

Amy’s been ready since 6:05, but she takes a few minutes to adjust the drawstring of her pants and recheck the contents of her bag for a book, water bottle, her house keys, and insurance card. Then she opens the door.

“I didn’t want to be late,” Jake explains sheepishly, passing her a steaming cup. “But totally worth waking up early: I didn’t realize Amy Santiago owned sweatpants.”

“They said to wear something with an elastic waist,” she replies defensively.

“No, you look hot. I just didn’t know you owned pants that aren’t part of a suit.”

He seems to realize that he called her hot at the same time she does. They both blush, and Amy takes the coffee authoritatively, leading Jake down the hall to the stairwell.

“I choose the music today.”

“Of course,” Jake replies. “But the radio’s broken so your choices are Beastie Boys or Taylor Swift mixed tapes.”

“I should have known. Good thing the clinic is close by.”

“So, Taylor Swift it is?” Jake grins.

“Yeah,” Amy replies with an eye roll and a mock groan.

Jake pops a tape into the tape machine that is rigged into an old CD changer, and a companionable silence falls in the car. As “Trouble” ends and the opening cords of “Red” begin, Jake pulls into a parking spot across the street from the clinic. It’s early enough that the protesters, with their van covered in pictures of smiling babies and crosses with doves flying nearby, are still setting up their signs that read “baby killer,” and “it’s not too late to repent.”

One gray-haired older man in glasses, who looks unassuming enough, notices Jake and Amy approaching the building, stops hammering the sign into the slim patch of grass at the edge of the sidewalk, and approaches with a pamphlet in his outstretched arm, saying something about how she looks like she will be a beautiful mother. Before the man reaches them, Jake has the clinic door open so fast that it practically hits both Amy and the protestor in the face.

“Shit,” Jake says as Amy enters the vestibule behind him.

“Yeah,” Amy shakes her head. “Research doesn’t totally prepare you for that.”

Jake just nods as they unload their pockets, hand over IDs, and step through a metal detector to enter the small, brightly lit waiting room.  

Amy directs Jake to sit, and he makes a show of seriously perusing the dog-eared issues of Cosmo, Time, and Parenting Magazine that litter the end tables, tucked in next to pamphlets on breastfeeding, immunizations, and chlamydia.

The woman at the desk takes her ID and insurance card, and tells her to take a seat for a few minutes while the staff finishes getting set up. Amy sits down next to Jake, placing her purse across her lap and holding it against her body.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she says over the three-year-old issue of ESPN magazine that Jake seems to have made materialize from nowhere.

“Of course I’m staying!” he responds quickly.

The woman at the front desk casts a suspicious sidelong glance at the two.

“But not if you don’t want me to, Ames” he says, looking at the secretary. “It’s just that this article says the Giants have a real fighting chance this year, and I can’t wait to learn more.”

Amy looks down at her shoes. “It might be nice if you were here when I’m done.”

“No problem,” Jake replies, pulling a bag of twizzlers out of his sweatshirt pocket. “I can be here all day. Got my favorite stakeout food.”

The secretary peers over her glasses in their direction again, and less than a minute later a woman in teal scrubs pops into the waiting room through a side door and calls out, “Amy?” as if there were a sea of people and not just Amy, Jake, and the security guard in the waiting area.

Amy gets up, and half-turns as she briefly considers just leaving her bag with Jake, but then starts to second-guess herself, turns around, and enters the narrow hallway behind the check-in desk. 

The woman introduces herself as a medical assistant, takes Amy’s height and weight, and asks for the date of her last period, then leads her to a small office filled with pictures of a tiny old woman shaking hands with various, vaguely familiar-looking Broadway actors.

“Adelaide will be right in to talk with you more about what to expect today,” the medical assistant says as she closes the door.

Not thirty seconds later Amy hears a gentle knock, and a stooped, smiling, very elderly woman with bright white hair walks in the room.

“Ms. Santiago, I’m Adelaide McGovern,” the woman says as she extends a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m here to make sure you understand what is happening today. Is it all right if I ask you some questions?”

Amy nods in assent.

“Your paperwork says you’re here today for a procedural termination of pregnancy. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Amy replies. “I didn’t plan on being pregnant, and I’m just not sure kids are something I’m ready for, or even really want.”

Adelaide nods. “Who knows about this pregnancy?”

“My, um, partner, I guess, knows,” She hopes that she sounds less uncertain out loud. “And my best friend. And I sort of suspect her girlfriend knows, but that’s fine. I didn’t tell my family because I didn’t want to worry them.”

“And has anyone pressured you into making this decision?”

“No! No, not at all. Is this about what Jake said in the waiting room? Because he’s just an idiot and was goofing around with the twizzler thing. They’re really only his second-favorite stakeout candy.” Amy smiles at her attempt at a joke before realizing what she just said and attempts to clarify by speaking more quickly. “Jake is the man in the waiting room. He’s the father and he’s totally on board with this and not pressuring me at all. We’re both detectives, which I why we know about stakeouts. He’s not a stalker. I promise. I want him to be here. He just has bad timing with jokes.”    

Adelaide smiles calmly at Amy, “Are you sure everything is alright?”

Amy looks right in Adelaide’s kind, crinkly eyes, and she can feel a sense of calm and certainty rise in her chest. “Yes, 100%.”

It seems that Adelaide senses the shift in Amy’s mood as well, because she declines to ask any further questions before explaining what will happen for the rest of the morning and inquiring about future birth control plans. (Amy is proud of herself for not interrupting to share some prime information on the history of the speculum that she found while making her “option 1: abortion” binder).

She leads Amy to a smaller waiting room in the back of the building, and within minutes she’s brought in for an ultrasound. The nurse asks if Amy wants to place the probe herself, and explains that there’s no need to look at the ultrasound screen. Amy nods in agreement, but then peaks over the nurse’s shoulder despite herself. There’s just a tiny blob on the screen, a lighter-colored blur next to a lot of other blurriness. She exhales deeply, not realizing that some small part of her was worried the protestors were right, that she’d see a waving miniature infant on the screen somehow.

The next thing she knows she’s in another set of stirrups, in another small but neat clinical room, with a spiky-haired woman holding her hand and a doctor with purple hair and a demeanor that radiates tranquility and competence telling her to take a deep breath and it will all be over soon.

She winces for a minute, feels one jolt of cramping pain, and then the doctor says, “All done, Ms. Santiago,” and leaves the room.

A nurse brings her a sanitary pad and some ibuprofen, helps her into a contraption that looks like a rolling lounge chair, and brings a cup of juice before rolling her a few feet down the hall to the recovery room. Which is really a lot like the waiting room except that it has TVs and a nurse checking the blood pressure of someone else who’s semi-recumbent in the same type of chair Amy is in.  

The nurse comes over to check Amy’s vital signs and ask about her pain level. She explains that Amy can go home once it is clear that she’s not bleeding excessively and isn’t going to faint when she stands up.

The TV is playing some sort of cooking show that Amy can’t quite focus on, so she takes her phone out of her bag to give Jake an update- she can only imagine what he’s doing in the waiting room to pass the time. A vision of trash-can basketball with old magazines pops into her head.

_All done- it went well. I need to wait in recovery for a while so now could be a good time for you to go stretch your legs?_

Within seconds a reply pops onto her screen

**So glad u are ok. I am fine. Nance and I are buddies now.**

Amy’s about to respond to ask who Nancy is when she gets another message.

**Nancy is the secretary who thought I was a murderer. We r cool now. I got a loud kid to stop screaming.**

**She likes twizzlers, too.**

Amy smiles down at her phone.

They pass the next two hours texting comfortably and rapidly back and forth- Amy informing Jake of a Hitchcock-Scully ketchup explosion that he had missed while doing door duty, and Jake responding with increasingly absurd selfies.

Before she knows it, the nurse comes over to Amy with a stack of papers, a lollipop, and a smile.

“Feeling good still? You’re free to go if you’d like.”

Amy places her phone in her purse and takes the papers and lollipop in her other hand.

“Do you have a ride? We can arrange a cab if you need, but we don’t have vouchers anymore,” the nurse explains as Amy signs the discharge papers and initials that she understands the follow-up instructions (as if she didn’t have a copy at home already).

“I’m all set,” Amy replies, and heads out to the waiting room. As soon as she sees him Jake is up out of his chair, candy wrappers falling in his wake.

He strides towards Amy, but stops short by a few feet. He doesn’t say anything, and Amy doesn’t either, as if the easy text banter of just a few minutes ago was between two different people.

“Looking good, Santiago,” he finally says with a grin as she continues to approach. She can see that he’s a little anxious now, though. His eyes aren’t as lit-up as when he’s making jokes in the precinct or talking about _Die Hard_.

It’s only a few steps to the car (Jake must have been doing laps of the block on and off to avoid the 2-hour parking restrictions), and Amy is surprised at how happy she is to sink into the warn and familiar front seat.

Jake gets in once he sees that she’s settled, then turns to look directly in her eyes as he starts the car, “How are you doing? Do you need anything on the way home?”

Amy is about to launch into her list of preparations (ibuprofen, the pamphlet on what constitutes a problem, the fact that she can be back on active duty on Monday and no one should be any the wiser) when, almost without her noticing, the truth slips out.

“They were so nice and I’m so relieved,” she sighs. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot. If anyone’s an idiot I am,” Jake stares right at her again, no sign of a smile, his eyes unreadable but intense.

Amy isn’t used to seeing Jake serious like this, or at least not serious about anything that’s not a case. And even then there’s usually a levity to his intensity- he’s full of joy during the  thrill of a case, but now he radiates sobriety. Who knew his eyes could bore into her like that? And then she can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She looks out the window, not wanting Jake to see her like this. Not that there’s anything wrong with crying, but she doesn’t want him to think that she’s ashamed or has regret. She saw how, behind the fear, there was something about the idea of having a child that made him light up. She doesn’t want him to think that she’s sad about this, or did it for him, or that she doesn’t understand this was hard for him, too, despite how steadfast he’s been. And so the tears continue to slip out. There’s a parallelism to when she found out she was pregnant, she thinks. A cleansing of feelings and expectations, and a resetting. A new appreciation of old opportunities. It would be a very nicely composed painting.

It’s partway through this realization when Amy notices that Jake hasn’t pulled out of the parking spot yet, and is instead hastily glancing back and forth between her and the road, uncertain whether to acknowledge her crying or start the drive home. When he notices her noticing his eyes darting around he throws the car back in park and awkwardly leans his whole body across the center console to give her a hug.

He must be in pain from the seatbelt digging into his shoulder and the clutch digging into his side, but Amy feels immediately more at peace as she’s enveloped in his warm arms and familiar scent. And the tears seem to have been a last farewell of the pregnancy hormones. Wrapped in Jake’s arms in a car in Brooklyn after getting an abortion, a position she couldn’t have imagined even two weeks ago, she feels more like herself than she has in months. She lets out a strangled sob and allows the tears to fall as she rests her head on Jake’s shoulder. He lets his head drift down so that his cheek touches the top of her forehead. She can’t help but remember the night she slept with him and how naturally their bodies seemed to fit together then. The same ease washes over her now, and her sobs slowly come to a stop.

Amy takes a deep breath and pulls back. Jake slides himself fully back into the driver’s seat, subtly massaging his side and re-buckling the twisted seatbelt. The tears have begun to dry up, and she wipes her nose on her sleeve.

“Ew, gross,” Jake whines exaggeratedly, but his eyes are as soft as she’s ever seen them.

Without another word, Jake backs the car out of the space and begins the drive to Amy’s apartment.

He is out of the driver’s side door and opening the passenger side with an offer of his arm for assistance before she has a chance to gather her purse and old coffee cup to dispose of properly (if she leaves it she knows it will linger in Jake’s car indefinitely).

“Jake, I’m fine,” she rolls her eyes at his chivalric gesture. 

“Cool cool, right, I know,” he’s stumbling over his words again.

“Do you want to come up for a bit?” Amy replies.

“I don’t want to impose if you need rest,” he replies. “But, yeah, that would be nice.”

She unlocks the door and he follows her quietly up the two flights of stairs. She can feel a twinge of pain, just a small cramp really, as she fishes her keys out of her purse and unlocks the door. She didn’t think she so much as flinched, but suddenly Jake’s hand is hovering near her back, as if she’s at risk of toppling over any second.

“I know, you’re fine,” he smiles shyly as she opens the door.

“Can I get you anything?” she replies. “I don’t have any orange soda.”

“Then hard pass. I jest. Sort of. Why don’t I get us some water and make a cup of tea?”

“You don’t know how to cook, Jake.”

“Making a delicious cup of tea is not cooking. And it’s something that I’m very good at. Tea preparation is a Karen Peralta life skill. I won’t even make a huge mess of your kitchen, I promise.”

“Hard to turn down that offer,” she replies, sinking into her couch cushions. “Do you want to choose a movie?”

“Whatever you want!” he calls from the kitchen.

She begins to flip through the channels, wondering why there is nothing good on, when she realizes it’s only 11:30 in the morning. She flips over to her Netflix queue, wondering how upset Jake will be if she asks him to watch the kilogram documentary with her. She finally settles on _Finding Nemo_ which seems appropriately light for the early hour and strange circumstances.

She hears the tea kettle begin to whistle, and then Jake is by her side, with a steaming mug in each hand. Amy grabs two coasters and places them on the coffee table. Jake sets the mugs down and sits next to Amy on the couch, leaving a good eight inches between them.

“Hope Disney fish is ok with you,” she says as she gestures at the tv, “wasn’t sure what the right mood would be.”

“Yeah, it’s all fine,” he replies, clearly distracted. He picks up his mug and cradles it to his chest.

“I didn’t know if you’d make a joke about watching a movie about a lost child after coming home from taking me to get an abortion.”

“First of all, I would not make that joke because it’s straight up not funny. But more importantly: is that what you think I thought about this? Getting an abortion is not the same thing as losing a child. Even a fish child. You were pregnant, you didn’t want to be. I got you pregnant, so I was down for whatever you wanted to do, truly. Will I pretend that there wasn’t a little part of me that was excited to have a kid? And with you of all people? But I was also terrified. I think you made the right choice.”

Amy sighs, and reaches over to take Jake’s hand in hers. “Thank you. Thank you so much, for everything. I don’t know what I would do without you.” She lets go of his hand and picks up her tea to take a sip, “This is really good!”

“Always the tone of surprise,” Jake smiles back. “Should we start the movie?”

Amy hits play, but just as the movie opens with the scenes of underwater fauna swaying to gentle music, she hits pause.

“Jake, do you want to go out on a date with me? I had a lot of fun that night, even before the sex. And there’s almost no one I like hanging out with more than you. I understand if you don’t want to, but…”

“Absolutely yes,” he responds before she can finish her sentence. “Want to start right now?”

He does a dramatic fake yawn and stretches his arms until one is draped over Amy’s shoulders, and they both collapse into giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter! Thanks so much for hanging in there.


	5. Epilogue/ Four years later

Sergeant Amy Santiago isn’t one for extended lunch breaks, but she’s taken to having a walk around noon since she started studying for the Lieutenant’s exam. Jake thought it might help her to reenergize and focus (the not freak out part was left unsaid) in the middle of long work days bracketed by practice questions and painting the new apartment.

So she sets out on her mid-day stroll, nodding to the detectives as she exits the eight-two. She tries to look casual, but isn’t too worried. The crew at the eight-two is great, and the captain is a by-the-book woman who Amy adores almost as much as Captain Holt. But they don’t know her like the nine-nine does. That’s part of why she’s studying so hard for the Lieutenant’s exam: if she passes, she’s got a good chance of being assigned back there.

She crosses the leafy street, heading left instead of right like she usually does. This part of Queens is fine, she supposes, but she can’t wait to be back in Brooklyn. She knows exactly which aisle to go to as she enters the Duane Reade, and smiles broadly at the checker as she places her purchase on the counter, her rings (grandma’s plus a stunning yet simple band that Jake, with help from Terry and Charles, had designed himself) glint in the late-spring sunshine.  She tucks the purchase in her purse and continues her walk before grabbing some pierogis and salad and heading back to the precinct to eat lunch at her desk while she updates crime statistics.

The rest of the day seems to drag by, even though she spends most of it doing paperwork. When the clock hits 5:30 she is up and out the door. Captain James raises an eyebrow as Amy crosses the bullpen, but doesn’t stop her or make a comment.

She drives home as responsibly as ever, but with purpose, perhaps slightly cursing out the delivery truck she gets stuck behind for the two exits she needs to be on the BQE.

Despite the 5-minute delay, she gets home at 6:05, about 10 minutes before Jake will be walking in the door. Usually he is home earlier than she is these days, an unfair advantage of working right near the precinct. She wonders if he’ll bring home dinner tonight. Tuesdays are “noodle night,” usually, which can be spaghetti from Sal’s or pad kee mao from Thai Star, or sesame noodles from Chan Dynasty, depending on their mood. Lately they’ve been working on adding salads to noodle night, something Jake is incredibly proud of.  

She’s got her shoes off and her Duane Reade bag out when her phone buzzes in her pocket.

**U didn’t make a request today so I went with the sesame noodles. The kind with tofu and veggies. And got the papaya salad u requested. We r so healthy these days I am ashamed.**

**Anyway, be home in 5.**

She hurries to the bathroom and takes the pregnancy test out of its box. She’s got too many little tasks to complete in the next 5 minutes to be her usual worried self, instead she’s in the zone. As soon as she’s done peeing and washing her hands she’s in the bedroom changing, then out into the living room to light some candles and back to the kitchen to pull out plates and forks for dinner. (Another perk of married life: new, dishwasher-safe plates!). She’s contemplating whether to pull out the new cloth napkins or to just stick with the usual paper towels when Jake opens the front door accompanied by a waft of heavenly sesame scent.

He clearly doesn’t expect to see her home yet, and does a double take at the lit candles and the plates laid out on the low table next to the couch.

“Hi, hon,” she kisses him on the cheek as she zips the back of her dress. His mouth is hanging open just slightly, reflecting his confusion.

“Did I forget something? It’s not our anniversary yet I don’t think…” he says, his voice trailing off as she takes him by the hand, dragging him through the apartment. She stops next to the kitchen table and takes the food from his arms, placing it down next to a pile of papers.

“I figure we’d look at this together,” she smiles, letting go of his hand as she goes to retrieve the pregnancy test from the bathroom. It takes all of her willpower to not flip the stick over and look at the side of interest. She resists, grabbing it off the top of the toilet while keeping the hopefully double- blue side face down. As she turns back towards the kitchen she smacks directly into Jake, who had followed her into the bathroom, not yet realizing exactly what is going on.

He stammers as he notices the tiny white stick in her hand. She’s going to give him shit for this later, she thinks. Either that or try to get pregnant more often- it’s hard to find a way to shut Jake Peralta up.

She takes a deep breath and puts the test in his hand. He continues to stare blankly at her.

“Jake, I really haven’t already looked. Please just do this!”

He glances down at his right hand and then Amy is enveloped in his arms and tears are dripping onto her shoulder.

“So it’s positive, huh?” She asks, suddenly choking back her own tears. “We’re going to have a baby?”

Jake releases her from his embrace, but doesn’t let go of her hands, instead pulling them up to his heart. His smile stretches from ear to ear as he sniffles and wipes his nose on the shoulder of his flannel shirt. “We’re having a baby, Ames.”

She leans over their joined hands to kiss him, warmth filling her chest.

“So, John McClane Peralta-Santiago?” she asks.

Jake laughs through his tears, and extracts his left hand to place it on Amy’s stomach.

“What if I’m a bad dad? I don’t know anything about babies. I didn’t exactly have a good role model.”

She covers his hand with hers and replies, “Jake, don’t be ridiculous. Having a baby is scary! But think of all the big and scary things we’ve been through together. I wouldn’t be doing this with anyone but you. I love you, and I know from the core of my being that you are going to be a great dad.”

“I love you so, so much,” he responds. “Now should we eat these noodles before they get cold? You’ve got to eat for two! I can go get more.”

Amy chuckles and kisses Jake on the cheek, “I think I’ll make it through tonight.”

They unpack the noodles and Jake scoops extra papaya salad onto Amy’s plate when she looks away. She just rolls her eyes at him, but can’t stay frustrated for too long. They’ll just have to review the binder section on first-trimester nutrition later tonight.  The conversation quickly turns to work and the going on at the nine-nine, and what to do with Thursday evening tv-watching if Property Brothers gets canceled. The realization that she’s pregnant right now tickles at the back of Amy’s mind occasionally. She still can’t fathom all that is going to change and grow in her life over the next few months, and really forever, but the nibbles of anxiety are halted by the soothing, repetitive motion of Jake reaching to touch her thigh or her hand as he talks about his day. She’s not sure how she fell so in love with such a goof, but she’s never been happier to see where life takes her little family.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I've written since some overly angst-fueled one-shots in the HP fandom in middle school many moons ago. Which is to say, so many thanks to any and all who read this far. I can't say how much it has meant to me.


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